


building a dam called memories

by petalstorm (orphan_account)



Category: Free!
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Oneshot, The RH is implied and you have been warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 02:06:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3832999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/petalstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There isn’t really anybody else to rely on other than the water.</p>
            </blockquote>





	building a dam called memories

Haruka delves into the bathtub because he feels like the water understands him the most right now.

Makoto doesn’t know, the whereabouts of Nagisa are unknown. And Rin – Rin is probably still in Australia.

There isn’t really anybody else to rely on other than the water. The water knows, the water accepts – and the water doesn’t judge. It never does. It accepts Haruka as much as Haruka accepts the water. They’ve been through a symbiosis like animals, like trees and mushrooms, for years – ever since the human being Haruka Nanase was in the belly of his mom. And that has never changed. He still feels the water from his bones to his fingertips even now. It might sound funky – and certainly, that’s what he wrote in elementary school too – but it still captures his feeling best. Even after all this time.

He sees the past whenever he closes his eyes – of their last race, of his first encounter with Rin. Is it all a joke of fate? If yes, he wants this joke to be over. He doesn’t laugh at it and he never did.

He wants to be ordinary. Ordinary people don’t have troubles, or problems. A solid and simple life and that’s what he wants.

Then a cherry blossom petal falls on the tub, from the open window.

A cherry blossom petal?

_I’ll show you a sight you’ve never seen before!_

Haruka remembers it well. There’s no way he could have forgotten – that sight that changed him.

 

He keeps thinking of Rin after that.

When Makoto drops the “-chan” moments after Haruka tells him to, he thinks of how Rin dropped his goggles moments after Haruka wins.

When Haruka wears an apron to cook mackerel, he thinks of Rin snickering. _That’s what they said about you, too,_ he said, when Haruka told him he doesn’t care about the time. And really, he still doesn’t. But now, it has a different reason. He doesn’t care about time because time doesn’t heal, time doesn’t help, time doesn’t understand; all time does is carving a bigger canyon into the distance.

When the new homeroom teacher calls him out, and everyone laughs at his girly name, he thinks of Rin. Rin who boldly came into their class, with a smile on his face, declaring _I have a girlish name, but I’m a boy!_

Rin Matsuoka wears his sorrows like an armor, and the sun reflects metal better than barely laid out flesh. An armor that makes him shine even more.

Well, then again, Haruka pierced through it rather easily, so it’s probably not metal. An armor of porcelain.

He thinks of that race again. There is a lot he could have said to Rin, there is a lot he held back.  And there is a lot he could have said with his eyes, with his body, with his soul. He gulped them all into his soul. And now, these words, feelings, looks and emotions, they nag on him. And each time they do, he tries to ignore it.    

 

_There are cherry blossom trees next to the pool!_

He has a short time to think of Rin (again and again and again) before he hears that dreadful _–chan_.

In a way, he’s glad Nagisa made him think of something else – he’s always been that gush of wind that lets the petals dance.

Haruka notices that he neglects every proposal of Nagisa. Is he even really meaning his words right now? Or is he trying to brush everyone off who tries bringing up the past? He doesn’t know. In a way, he doesn’t really care too much, either.

He misses details, big pictures – the present, maybe. It’s like it all passes by, way too fast for anyone to catch. But maybe, that also helps him focus on the truly important things.

(Their last meeting. Their first meeting. A promise.)

 

The swimming club is going to be torn down?

But does that make the past leave him, for once and for all? Or does it attach even more feelings on him and wraps Haruka like a deadly hug – a hug meant for all his oxygen to go out? He can’t tell. He doesn’t want to think about it. He doesn’t want to feel anything.

But whom is he fooling – it’s not going to be solved until Rin returns, maybe.

(He’s still neglecting Nagisa’s words, all of them, just because it feels right.)

So when Makoto mentions the pool, Haruka lights up, because his feelings are like bath bombs and they can only be set free in the water. The water has always understood. But the past, the past is not that easy; it’s the bath bomb that sticks on his skin and doesn’t just leave him in the drain.

It returns, and no matter how much he returns to the water, it sticks. And one day, he will be more past than present.

 

The entire way to the swimming club, Haruka sees Rin. Rin with that confident, proud smile. It was like the sun had come together to radiate one single person, like all cherry blossoms coming together to make the scenery perfect. It was as if the entire world conspired onto making this moment… ethereal. The world conspired onto making the moment ethereal, and it conspired again when Rin showed him that sight.

He wants to see that sight again. Again and again and again.

 

Cracks. Paled colors. Concrete barely holding together. “I’ve heard this place is haunted,” Nagisa says. Haruka doesn’t say it out loud, but he agrees. This place – it is only consisting of memories. The memories stuck together like it sticks with Haruka. The building begs to be torn down. Well, in a way, he’s glad to know that he’s not the only one who wants his past to leave for good already.

 

With each step Haruka goes, he remembers.

Cherry blossoms and promised sights. Trees and carvings. A worried forest green and a bold cherry red, and the admiring yellow in between. He wonders how the blue must’ve looked like, back then.

The goddamn picture of them together. Strong, aggressive strokes from Rin towards Haru. The blue trophy, mud on their hands, a fake time capsule.

Rin. Looking at him. His eyes reflecting cherry trees, blossoms. _Romantic, right?_  Living in the past is not very romantic, Rin, is what Haruka wants to tell him. From Japan all the way to Australia.

“Haru!”

The past has him, and it has him far too well.

 

Makoto tugs him annoyingly, so Haruka stops.

It’s someone about as tall as him, wearing dark clothes. Maroon hair, even in that dark. He looks… kind of…

He lifts his head.

The cherry red is now maroon, the smile has turned to a frown, he has the armor of the past onto him as well.

It’s Rin. No doubt.

And, with one summersault, Haruka is back in the present. The present – shades of cerulean, a knight merely protecting himself with an armor made of paper. Rin is here, below the paper sheets that are his armor. Haruka can see through it all.

He feels the spark of living since ages again.     

 

**Author's Note:**

> Haru introspection! It was a real challenge to write this because you really need the perfect atmosphere for it - in my case, thinking more abstractly than usual, rewatching the first episode and the lyrics for [Daisy](http://www.animelyrics.com/anime/kyoukai/daisy.htm) helped. The title is taken off [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aFNez7DGTQ), though. And maybe (hopefully), I'll post a companion piece of Rin!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed reading it!


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